While not nearly as large as the twin cities on Nancora, the trio of factories that accompany them make a case to be called cities all their own. Empusa is the first of these industrial complexes, and the most notable. It's modular design lends itself to fabrication blocks entirely dedicated to specific needs. One section may be focused on the mass-production of firearms and other weapons, while another is producing vehicle after vehicle.

The largest of these fabrication blocks is also the most vulnerable, a cavernous bay resembling a dreadnought's hangar system with an opening leading directly to the land outside Empusa. It is here that fabricators line the floor, producing ground assault vehicles along a series of conveyors. Supplies and materials are stacked along the walls, ready for delivery to the waiting automated arms.

This section is overseen by a series of control rooms and interconnected catwalks that form a spider web suspended above the fabricators. Security is tight, each unit closed off to the others and ID locks at their entrances. Shield generators are built into the gaping maw of the fabricator bay, preventing the elements from entering the complex while allowing a staging area for the completed units.

High Priority Target

Name: Chelsie "CC" Crimson
Affiliation: Liberation Front
Species: Human
Gender: Female
Height: 1.84 m
Weight: 76 kg

Intel has received word that a target of opportunity has presented itself. Captain Crimson of the Liberation Front has been spotted on Nancora. Preliminary data outlined Crimson as one of the guiding forces behind the Collective's training and military effectiveness. This data has been proven correct. There is almost no chance Captain Crimson will be found in isolation, so maintain a healthy respect for her ability to motivate the troops under her command. Alone, she's merely a threat. While among her unit? She's a muse of war.

Click for full dossier details.

The hum of the factory permeated the walls of the control room. It was a low, dull sound that cascaded over the room at ankle level. The only reprieve from the manufacturing plant’s constant roar was the incessant beeping of nearby terminals, the buzzing of various components, and the whir of cooling fans. A pair of voices within drifted outward.

“Was getting caught part of your plan?” Aurora “Aura” Ta’var’s voice held an icy tone.

Braecen Kaeth cringed, “Yes... and no. I wasn’t going to be able to get past security on my own.”

He at least had the decency to sound abashed. While she had maintained a modicum of secrecy and infiltrated the facility, he had simply approached the front and blasted the building with Force-spawned Lighting. Heightened security from his frontal assault had flushed the Jedi from cover and eventually forced her into the same arena as the Sith. It had been at his insistence the pair had surrendered themselves and their weapons.

Aura and Braecen were restrained and seated with their backs together. Two sides of a single coin. On the left, a Sith Adept draped in flowing black robes with a cruel expression twisted across his visage. To the right, a Jedi warrior, grounded in her forced serenity, swathed in ornamental robes covered by a simple, brown flowing cloak. In the non-existing space between them, an ocean of shared history and perspective.

Both had held the title of Executor, or Quaestor of House Excidium, within Scholae Palatinae. The Savant’s departure from the position came at the apex of the destruction of the Cocytus System and near ruination of the Clan. The Elder’s arrival to the role forced him into the task of reassembling a shattered Clan and moving forward towards a new home.

“You got us into this mess, so get us out of it,” Aura barked. “And you better not kill anyone while doing it!”

The Elder grumbled an unintelligible response. Power seeped into his being, beckoned by his need, and summoned by his mastery of the Dark Side of the Force. The power sickened him so severely that he doubled over in anguish. It was an avalanche of fire that tore at his gut and pressed up to his heart. Each heartbeat pushing the mystical energy through his veins like molten iron. Power,unnatural and raw, radiated from him as it swept around him in a tempest of malice and ambition. It was an unholy union, the power he craved and needed in trade for his life force each time he used it.

In a considerable feat of overcharged strength, he pulled against his stun cuffs. The metal screeched under the extreme exertion. Ping! One of the metal links that connected the cuffs twisted and came apart. With his hands free, he was able to extract himself from the remainder of his restrictions.

Braecen immediately stumbled and fell to a knee as he attempted to stand. His breathing was ragged and his body, previously aflame with the Dark Side, suddenly felt cold and empty - as if he had been doused with a bucket of arctic water. Exhaustion crept in the wake of the cold, but he willed his eyes to remain open despite the sudden heaviness pressed against his eyelids.

Unceremoniously, focused solely on the task in his mind, he crawled towards the Jedi and removed her restraints. With each beat of his heart, as he worked towards his goal, the chill in his muscles and mind began to retreat. As he loosened Aura’s last he felt the growing exhaustion halt.

“I would normally say ‘thank you’,” Ta’var shrugged, “but you got us into this mess.” She casually flipped her crystal blue hair from her eyes. Her eyes shared the same color and they both reminded Braecen of the coastal waters of his homeworld. He would have almost labeled her as beautiful if it had not been for her soft pink skin.

“You’re welcome,” the Adept laughed. “I’m just an ordinary demi-guy.”

An exterior door opened and a cacophony of new sounds assaulted them as they turned towards it. Previously transcendent, the noise was now all encompassing. The bellow of ventilation, the hiss of steam, and the roar of the furnaces were accompanied by a chorus of gears grinding as they pressed together. Pistons hammered, pounded, and drummed in perpetual motion like nerve synapses firing. The building may be inanimate, but Braecen likened it to being within the belly of a great beast.

Framed in the doorway stood a woman clad in black and red armor. Blue eyes widened in alarm, but quickly narrowed in recognition with a lethal glint of determination. Her button nose flared as she reached for her sidearm. The compact blaster pistol trained in on Braecen’s haggard form, but Aura stepped in front of him and let her actions be guided by the Force. Her arms raised in a defensive pattern, the emerald bolts screamed across the distance and splashed against her defensive corona.

The woman’s full lips twisted into a sneer and with her triple slash scar gave her a malevolent appearance. “Force Users!” she spat in disgust. The soldier fired off several more shots as she retreated from the threshold. Despite the ineffectiveness against her opponents, the tactic pinned her opponents to one location and allowed her to create distance between them.

“Crimson!” Braecen barked. “Quickly, we have to cut her off before she can reach reinforcements.” Still winded from his previous exertion, he was unable to race after the woman himself.

The Sith watched as realization dawned in the Jedi’s clear blue eyes. The Rollmaster of Odan-Urr spun on her heels and gave chase to the infamous trainer of the Collective’s forces. Captain Crimson was a critical asset for the Liberation Front’s continued military effectiveness in this campaign. Her capture, or demise, would prove a tremendous boon for the allied Clans. And it would vault her captor, or killer, into further prominence within the Brotherhood.

Aura rushed through the door, coming to an abrupt stop as she quickly scanned the area. She spotted Crimson’s multicolored armor as it bobbed slightly with each stride across one of the catwalks; its industrial gray matched the rest of the factory, making her target easier to track. The Zeltron pivoted to her left and sprinted after the Captain, thankful that her own footsteps against the metal grates underfoot were masked by the noise of the factory itself.

Capture or kill if necessary. Wanted by Odan-Urr for valuable intel, she thought to herself as she mentally replayed the mission summary, imagining Councillor Archenksova’s crisp accent delivering it. The pounding of nearby pistons made the cold-blooded dictate ‘kill if necessary’ sound even worse, reminding her of firing turbolasers.

Aura’s stomach turned at the thought of it, dearly hoping she could take CC alive before her uninvited guest, Braecen, interfered. Immediately after following the Reaver onto a long, straight walkway, the Odanite focused on barraging Captain Crimson's body with the Force until CC’s motor functions became overwhelmed and stopped moving altogether. The Zeltron rushed forward but quickly felt a familiar tug of unease in her gut. Unsure of where to go, Aura simply backed off a step and ignited her lightsaber with a snap-hiss.

Blaster fire from both sides shot upwards from the factory floor below. The Odanite deflected the bolts away from her, her azure blade whipping through the air in a chaotic blur. Chunks of superheated metal fell below as she inadvertently cut away pieces of the catwalk’s safety rails. Aura growled in frustration as Crimson regained her movement, put on her helmet, and turned to face the Odanite with a blaster rifle. The Zeltron cursed her luck, sweat beading on her face.

The hum of a second saber or two punctuated the air, followed by a cry of pain below. CC yelled indistinguishably and focused her fire on Braecen, allowing Aura a small sigh of relief. The Zeltron continued to bat aside projectiles as she pressed the small advantage she had been given, but this time only half of the blaster fire was concentrated on her. Moreover, with each step came more yells and fewer bolts until Crimson was forced to switch targets.

“Take this, Jedi!” the Captain yelled as she flung a grenade and retreated to cover.

Aura deactivated her saber, channeled the Force, and focused on the projectile as she punched her fist through the air. In her mind, she felt the object slow down as her invisible strike swung through it and whacked it away from her, time seemingly speeding up as it flew to her left. It detonated in a loud boom below the top of the fabricators, unleashing metal shrapnel at high velocities. The Zeltron hit the deck and wrapped her arms around her head, lightsaber in hand just in case. Fragments ripped into anything in its path, a few causing shallow lacerations on the Odanite’s left side, primarily her legs.

A chorus of pained moans sung from below, drowning out her own yelps of pain. Aura reached out to the Force around her and felt a familiar anguish. People were dying. She grabbed the rail to help herself up and found her hand shaking ever so slightly. The Zeltron breathed and forced herself to get up, a pained expression on her face that had nothing to do with her own injuries. The dying soldiers almost made her heave, their piteous cries unrelenting.

“Braecen, you okay?” Aura yelled.

“What do you think? Next time, give a heads up!” the Sith snarled back.

Her mouth opened in horror as he advanced on the wounded, his sabers quickly slicing through them. The Zeltron ignored the stinging pain on her left side and jumped over the railing, pulling the Force into her legs to cushion her fall.

Aura landed a few meters away from him as he gutted another. “What are you doing?” she yelled angrily.

“Salvaging this operation. Don’t let her run away!” Braecen replied.

The Odanite couldn’t help but seethe as she fought back the temptation to go after the Elder instead, her hands balling into fists. A bacta bomb sailed past them while they argued, already flying towards the largest cluster of soldiers. Braecen used the Force to pull it away from them, but Aura quickly countered it with her own push, forcing it back towards the injured. A mist exploded outward, coating many of the wounded with bacta.

“Making me work for it,” taunted the Elder.

“Anyone who can still fight, surround them and pick them off! We can still win this!” barked CC apoplectically before she started firing her rifle at both of them.

The Zeltron’s saber sprang to life as she moved to cover behind a fabricator, deflecting any incoming bolts. CC screamed, her voice almost feral. Aura reached out to the Force and felt a familiar sense of loss. Something had broken inside the Captain. It was an emotion Aura knew well.

The Odanite breathed slowly but found herself brooding instead. She gave the Elder a predatory glare through the machinery that separated them, anticipating the fight. The pounding noise, the dead, and the surrounding pain cried out to her, relentlessly urging her to strike back like a pack of loth wolves on the hunt. She breathed quicker and quicker, the pain from her injuries all but forgotten while she focused on Braecen.

“I have bigger problems right now, Crimson. Stay out of my way and get your troopers out of here!” shouted Aura threateningly.

The Zeltron cautiously navigated the factory floor, not trusting CC to comply. As the Odanite stalked her new prey around a corner, she saw the Elder’s back and moved within range.

“What are you—” the Sith started to ask.

She channeled the Force to help guide her and unleashed a flurry of swings at Braecen.

Bewildered by the surrealness of Aura’s actions, Braecen nearly missed when the Force commanded him to move forward with immediacy. With abandon, he tossed himself into a forward somersault. The motion took him under the arc of her blade and out of range of a savage sequence by her azure blade.

No love had been lost between the Sith-turned-Jedi previously known as ‘Blade’ and Clan Scholae Palatinae. She had been entrusted, as Executor, to safeguard the Clan against all threats internal and external. Instead, she had waged a personal war against the established rule of the Tyrants, or Consuls, in her own manner. Aura’s ambitions had played into the near ruination of the Clan and the destruction of the Cocytus System. She had publicly stated regret for only one of those things; thus the presence of a former Tyrant, Braecen the Heartless, had escalated her ire to action.

The Elder had slowed to collect his previously confiscated weapons before departing the control room. He had not realized that his ally-turned-opponent had done the same. How did I miss that? he berated himself internally. Distracted with his thoughts, and exhausted from battle, he missed the next command the Dark Side urged him to follow.

An invisible fist of Force blasted Braecen square in the back and sent him flying forward, his breath exploding from his lungs and his lightsabers deactivating as thesevere blow knocked them flying. He tucked his chin, then fought to hold it there as he struck a nearby manufacturing machine. Braecen almost wished he had been rendered unconscious by the impact. Stinging nails of pain clawed at his spine as his vertebrae rocked beneath the impact. He dropped to the floor, fighting to keep his pain from pulling him down into the abyss and forced his eyes to remain open..

“You didn’t have to kill them!” a hoarse scream erupted from the lips of the Jedi. “I won’t let you kill any more of them,” she trailed off coldly.

Braecen noted the wild look in the Zeltron’s eyes. He sensed the turmoil of conflicted emotions at her core. The Elder had seen this in previous wars. Aura’s actions were now being driven by the memories of tragedy self caused - the loss of innocent lives in the Cocytus System. The Proconsul knew she could be driven to recklessness in the grips of her post-traumatic episode.

A barrage of emerald blaster bolts howled through the awful din of the factory. Aura was forced to reverse her direction and deflect the incoming onslaught. Her hands were guided by the Force as she fought to divert the bolts into non-lethal targets. She grunted against the continuous weight of the avalanche of blaster fire before she gave ground and retreated in the opposite direction from the formation of soldiers towards the Dark Adept.

“Come on apes! Do you want to live forever?” shouted their Captain. “Formation Eff-El-Eight on my mark. Mark!” Crimson was pleased by the well-trained order of her soldiers as they moved to obey her commands. Nestled in their midst, she knew what was expected of her and, by extension, her soldiers.

“Tighten that position up, soldier!” She pointed to the man at the end of the line and he shuffled into the exact position she had drilled into them countless times. Only four soldiers had rallied to her position, but her cocksure composure spoke to her belief that it would be enough to surround a single Force User that stood before them and a second that laid prone against a nearby machine.

A blast of blue-white lightning arced past the Jedi and caught the soldier Crimson previously critiqued. Sparks of azure enfolded the soldier’s body as he fell lifeless to the ground. In the space of a heartbeat, another blast erupted into the soldier on the opposite side of the formation. The second deceased soldier’s inert form cascaded into the formation and busted their focus.

Aura wheeled around to face her Elder foe in the momentary lapse. His hands outstretched and fingers splayed wide from where he had unleashed multiple blasts of hot, jagged lightning. She deliberately advanced with her blade held before her. Braecen summoned both of his hilts to hand. Snap-snap-hiss! Two white flames leapt into existence before him.

Their blades collided violently as the Juggernaut blocked his opponent’s explosive blows. The azure blade moved swiftly in a constant blur with ferocious strikes. The unpredictability of the attacks forced Braecen to give ground before his foe. Aura feinted high, but the momentary pause was the opening the Elder had waited for. He planted his back foot and turned into a cyclone of powerful blows. His strikes attempted to overwhelm her defenses as he probed for a gap in her defense.

Aura retreated from her opponent and Braecen leapt at the opportunity to press his advantage. She closed space with the Elder opposed to retreating and found herself inside his guard. Braecen’s eyes widened in momentary shock. He quickly reacted by striking with the blade in his left hand. Instinctively, Aura countered the attack as she intercepted his arm with her own. Her right forearm slapped his left-handed attack wide before she channeled the Force to deliver a powerful blow with the heel of her hand to the Juggernaut’s solar plexus.

Crack! A bone snapped under the blow and threw the man backwards. Or, rather, it should have.

The white, hot teeth of Braecen’s second blade bit into the Savant’s flesh. She gasped and her eyes locked with the Elders. “With regards,” he whispered, “from the Palpatines.” He wrenched the blade upward and felt the lifeforce seep out of his victim. The husk of the Jedi dropped to the industrial floor.

Braecen stepped over the discarded corpse to face Captain Crimson. A new platoon of Technocrat Soldiers surrounded her. The front row kneeled before the backrow with all twenty blasters trained on his silhouette.

Fwec, Braecen thought.

Captain Crimson smiled as she gave the order.

“Fire!”

The Elder spun swiftly on the spot, whipping his twin sabers around like a cyclone. The sizzle of blade on blade reverberated in a series of quick staccato bursts as he adroitly blocked Aura’s initial attacks. The Zeltron redirected her last failed strike, seamlessly transitioning into a quick jab. Braecen’s trailing blade deflected it upward while his second followed up with a slash to her torso. The Odanite stepped back, desperately slashing downward in self-preservation.

Pew. Pew.

The Elder halted his killing strike, swinging it up along with his other saber to bat aside Crimson’s headshots. Relief washed over Aura as her blade hit nothing but air, already sizing up another attack. The Zeltron ducked behind Braecen’s bulk, giving her a meat shield against CC, and slashed at his unprotected side. The Elder spun his right blade downwards diagonally, barely hitting the Odanite’s strike away as he twisted away from another bolt.

“I’m not your enemy, Crimson is!” he growled as he ran to find better cover.

The Zeltron gave chase, staying close enough behind to slap away the Elder’s slash at a Collective trooper crawling for his gun. Aura pushed a hand behind her, using the Force to fling the blaster to the end of the aisle. Braecen shook his head and continued toward the objective, a wary eye behind him.

“Only you are killing defeated soldiers right now!” the Odanite retorted.

“Get out of my way!” threatened the Elder, ignoring her accusation.

Braecen took a sharp right and rushed towards the ragtag resistance, chopping them into pieces with his left saber while the right thwarted Aura’s interference attempts. Frustrated, the Zeltron pulled the Force into her legs and ran in front of him, cutting him off from the next group of dying soldiers. The Odanite rushed forward, relentlessly slashing and jabbing at his defenses. Braecen batted aside her strikes, frowning in displeasure as he saw Captain Crimson line up her next shot.

Pew.

Aura swung her saber to the left as the Force screamed at her to move, deflecting the bolt harmlessly away from her. Immediately after it had passed, the Zeltron felt a cascade of pain as electricity coursed through her body, her contracting muscles collapsing her to the ground. She lost grip of her lightsaber, its kill switch deactivating her blade as it fell.

“Y-you k-kill—” the Odanite stuttered as she looked up into the Elder’s face with a judgemental stare.

“Listen closely, Jedi. When an enemy threatens to destroy you and fails, you must utterly crush them. You understood that once. Now you’re sparing the same people that would murder your clanmates,” Braecen yelled as he batted aside more of CC’s potshots.

The Elder jabbed his right hand in her direction again, blue lightning arcing across Aura once more. The Zeltron yelled out in pain, curling up in a ball as her muscles tensed.

“Moreover, I have a job to do, and you keep messing it up!” Braecen snarled.

Braecen rolled Aura onto her back with his foot and pinned her to the ground, pressing a boot against her chest. The Zeltron gasped for air and tried to resist, her hands pushing feebly against his ankle. The Elder pointed his left saber at the Odanite’s throat, the deadly hum a mere inch away. Aura went as still as possible, eyes wide with fear. The Sith was pensive for a moment.

“My Empress would appreciate torturing you in person; perhaps even put you in a carbonite slab on her wall afterwards,” he threatened, letting his words linger as he scanned the relatively quiet factory floor before he returned his gaze. “And now you may have lost me Crimson. Stay put and don’t die. We aren’t finished,” promised Braecen.

The Elder got off her and unleashed a third burst of electricity, its current shocking Aura into submission. The Zeltron screamed in agony, her muscles no longer responding to her as they spasmed and then finally went still, stuck under tension. The Elder clipped the Odanite’s saber to his belt and went to look for CC, leaving the defeated Zeltron behind. As Aura laid there helplessly, she did her best to relax and slow her breathing, focusing on images of her loved ones as motivation to stay conscious.

The Zeltron could already hear the sound of blaster fire off in the distance, followed by the cries of more fallen. Aura wondered if Crimson had found reinforcements, anxiety shooting through the Odanite without her lightsaber there to protect her. The sounds of fighting came closer and closer until only Braecen and CC could be seen on the catwalk above, the latter already becoming quickly overwhelmed as the Elder batted her bolts harmlessly away while he advanced. One such bolt landed barely a meter away from the Zeltron. Adrenaline shot through Aura once more, helping to dull her sense of pain and urging her to move.

Haven’t failed yet, the Odanite thought as she spotted a bloodied rifle barely within arm’s reach.

Aura grimaced determinedly as she haphazardly twisted herself on the ground to grab the blaster’s handle, pulling the Force into her body to ignore the lingering pain for a short while. The Zeltron grunted in exertion as she pulled the blaster back to her chest and rolled on her back. As Aura lined up her shot on Braecen, she couldn’t help but think she would die soon. Either CC would shoot her or the Elder would return her to Scholae Palatinae. Doubt clouded the Odanite’s mind, images of her daughter flashing across her consciousness. The Zeltron tightened a shaking finger on the trigger, her sweat mixing with the blood on her hands.

After a moment, Aura lowered her arms glumly. Unable to pull the trigger, the Odanite dropped the gun, staring up at her lightsaber at Braecen’s side. If this was the end, she would die a Jedi. There is no Death, there is the Force, thought Aura as she fainted, Crimson’s final scream punctuating her thoughts.